Asus rumored to debut two new Android tablets at CES

The 7-inch slates feature single core processors and 1GB of RAM.

It appears Asus isn’t stopping with the Nexus 7 while arranging its 2013 roster of Android tablets. It’s rumored that the company will show off a pair of new tablets at next month’s CES in Las Vegas, shifting focus away from its 10-inch Transformer line and instead focusing on the 7-inch slates that have been received so well.

Though there are only a few mock-up shots available, details have leaked with the list of specifications for both tablets. The tablet allegedly referred to as the Asus ME371MG will utilize an as-of-yet-unreleased Intel Atom Z2420 chip, which has a 1.2GHz single-core processor. It will also feature a 1280x800 resolution, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage, as well as Bluetooth , Wi-Fi, and 3G radios. Phandroid reports that the tablet may also come equipped with a 3.1 megapixel camera.

Asus’ other rumored tablet, referred to as the ME172V, will be fueled by a 1GHz WM8950 SoC with Mali-400 graphics. The chip features the same Cortex A9 ARM architecture as the Nexus 7’s Tegra 3 SoC, though the WM8950 only has a single CPU core instead of four and clocks in at 800MHz. The display panel on the 7-inch tablet will also employ a TN display technology instead of IPS and feature a 1024x600 resolution.

Compared to the Nexus 7’s current quad-core offerings, these tablets are underwhelming. Both tablets are said to come equipped with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean right out of the box, with the ME172V available in both black and white colors. A leaked Russian product listing also shows the ME172V available for pre-order for about $226 USD, and it's expected to hit South Africa for the same price. We'll hopefully have more details once CES rolls around in January.

These are quite possibly the most "meh" tablets that they could have come out with. I own and love the Nexus 7, but if the 16 GB is goign for $200, they really should be doing much better with their own line.

I hope they continue with their Transformer series. Those were beautiful (if not riddled with I/O and signal issues). I own a Zenbook Prime which basically is the Infinity in Windows laptop form (13', 1080p), so I can attest to the fact that if they want to make truly remarkable machines, they very much can do it.

I think that ASUS should stick with a tablet long enough for a person to drive to the store and buy one, before they roll out their new model.I'm patient enough to wait a month for new tech to come out before I buy, but unfortunately for ASUS that means I'll never get the chance to own one of their tablets (tongue-in-cheek).

I really, really expected them to take a Nexus 7 32 GB model, make the single camera not suck or add a camera that doesn't suck facing to the rear, and expose an SD slot of some sort, and make the microUSB do that MHL/HDMI thing. Instant success there.

That single core is a lot more powerful than it looks. (The atom one, that is)

I've read the benchmarks for some of Intels Atom mobile chips, and a single core 1.2 GHz can probably easily hold its own against a Tegra 3 clocked at around the same frequency. It just goes to show how much more efficient the x86 architecture is per clock cycle.

That single core is a lot more powerful than it looks. (The atom one, that is)

I've read the benchmarks for some of Intels Atom mobile chips, and a single core 1.2 GHz can probably easily hold its own against a Tegra 3 clocked at around the same frequency. It just goes to show how much more efficient the x86 architecture is per clock cycle.

Yes, I was suprised Ars was implying that it would be beneath the Tegra3. Quad cores dosen't tell the story any better than Mhz ever did. The Atom in question is dual threaded, and x86 is a very efficient instruction set in low power applications. Now that Intel is focusing increasingly on that segment, ARM is going to have a serious fight on thier hands to retain the market.

That single core is a lot more powerful than it looks. (The atom one, that is)

I've read the benchmarks for some of Intels Atom mobile chips, and a single core 1.2 GHz can probably easily hold its own against a Tegra 3 clocked at around the same frequency. It just goes to show how much more efficient the x86 architecture is per clock cycle.

Yes, I was suprised Ars was implying that it would be beneath the Tegra3. Quad cores dosen't tell the story any better than Mhz ever did. The Atom in question is dual threaded, and x86 is a very efficient instruction set in low power applications. Now that Intel is focusing increasingly on that segment, ARM is going to have a serious fight on thier hands to retain the market.

Look at what Clover Trail is doing on tablets. Compare the ATIV Smart PC - faster than the Surface, essentially the same battery life, full x86 compatibility.

Intel can sometimes get caught napping, but beware. Once the beast is awake they are tough to face, ask AMD.

Having returned a Clovertrail-powered Windows 8 tablet just the other day, I can tell you that it's not CPU performance that is an issue, it's the anemic GMA 3600 graphics that you will be cursing when you attempt to do anything that uses a GPU. Even MS's new solitaire game chokes at time. Solitaire.

Having returned a Clovertrail-powered Windows 8 tablet just the other day, I can tell you that it's not CPU performance that is an issue, it's the anemic GMA 3600 graphics that you will be cursing when you attempt to do anything that uses a GPU. Even MS's new solitaire game chokes at time. Solitaire.

Agreed, however its using the same graphics core that is used in most ARM based products(PowerVR 540 series). Thats roughly the same as the Tegra3 graphics and a bit behind iPad graphics, which are just using a newer version of that GPU. My point is that compared to ARM based competitors, the Atom based stuff is the same on the graphics side, but considerably more powerful on the CPU side.

Hopefully next year's update finally brings IntelHD graphics to the Atom line. That would be a substantial boost and way ahead of everyone else in that space.

Any mobile device I buy from now on is a Nexus; I got screwed twice with non Nexus Android phones, I won't make that compromise again. I'd definitely give Haswell or Broadwell a chance on a tablet.. maybe some kind of ULV i3 with GT2 Intel HD graphics.. but like I said, gotta be a Nexus.

That single core is a lot more powerful than it looks. (The atom one, that is)

I've read the benchmarks for some of Intels Atom mobile chips, and a single core 1.2 GHz can probably easily hold its own against a Tegra 3 clocked at around the same frequency. It just goes to show how much more efficient the x86 architecture is per clock cycle.

Prob has more to do with Intel's engineering in both the fab and chip itself nowadays, since on a purely arch level, x86 sucks vs. ARM. In other words, x86 today in Atom is more like a simple RISC chip, and the overhead of x86 is now irrelevant at current process levels.

That single core is a lot more powerful than it looks. (The atom one, that is)

I've read the benchmarks for some of Intels Atom mobile chips, and a single core 1.2 GHz can probably easily hold its own against a Tegra 3 clocked at around the same frequency. It just goes to show how much more efficient the x86 architecture is per clock cycle.

Prob has more to do with Intel's engineering in both the fab and chip itself nowadays, since on a purely arch level, x86 sucks vs. ARM. In other words, x86 today in Atom is more like a simple RISC chip, and the overhead of x86 is now irrelevant at current process levels.

Thats not really true. Atom is not a RISC chip at its core, its based on the 486/Pentium line with a lot of modern optimizations and improvements. The fact is that CISC makes a ton of sense in low power applications, a single instruction can accomplish much more than a single instruction can on a RISC chip, effectively creating a situation where a slightly more complex chip can spend far less time in execution and far more time idling in low power modes than an equivilent RISC chip.

x86 has more challenges at the high end than RISC designs do, but at the low end x86 is actually very nice, which is why thats where it started, and as power and die size matter more and more the market is playing right into the strenghts of the architecture.

The first tablet with Atom sounds like an Android tablet placeholder for a Windows 8-based tablet. MS really needs to look at what Google's doing with the Nexus 7 and match that. They need to drive prices down if they ever want to get any traction in tablets. More than that, I think MS needs to learn from Google's spreading the Nexus contract love around to various OEM's and mimic that with Surface, too. MS looks at Apple and thinks they can have their cake (have OEM's throwing licensing money at them en masse) and eat it, too (rule the roost with amazing Surface sales). They're wrong. You can't just look at the field, see what Apple and Google are doing, and say, "WE WILL DO BOTH AND GET DOUBLE THE MONEY!" It's really kinda sad that they think they can.

The second tablet sounds like an early version of what will likely become the $100-$130 Nexus 7 that's being widely rumored atm. Asus won't take the same hit that Google is willing to take on pricing, I'm sure. I look forward to the day when a company I've actually heard of before is selling a good (defined as having decent space, decent runtime, sufficient performance) tablet for browsing, email, and light, light gaming for $100-$130. That'll be a great day indeed.

Plus, especially at the lower end of that price, you'd pretty much kill the liquid ink devices for all but the most niche users.

The Atom may be interesting, although after running Android x86 for a week I learned that there's a dearth of software, and unfortunately many apps would install but not start.

The other tablet sounds like an underpowered piece of junk that cannot hold a candle to Nexus 7. It could be worth $50, but then again $200 for a Nexus isn't exactly prohibitively expensive, so what's the point...

Plus, especially at the lower end of that price, you'd pretty much kill the liquid ink devices for all but the most niche users.

If you mean eink devices I'm more concerned with the multi-month battery life than anything else. Both of my eink Kindles see regular use, meanwhile I'm not sure where my Asus Transformer is at the moment. I can't be excited about a device that suggests a "toss it in a bag and forget" use but in reality requires me to stay tethered to a power socket because it can't hold a charge.

Plus, especially at the lower end of that price, you'd pretty much kill the liquid ink devices for all but the most niche users.

If you mean eink devices I'm more concerned with the multi-month battery life than anything else. Both of my eink Kindles see regular use, meanwhile I'm not sure where my Asus Transformer is at the moment. I can't be excited about a device that suggests a "toss it in a bag and forget" use but in reality requires me to stay tethered to a power socket because it can't hold a charge.

Agreed. eInk has its own user base, and its larger than a niche. We are past the point where full on LCD tablets were cheap enough to compete, and eInk devices are still selling very well by all accounts. eInk is way easier on the eyes than LCD's, especially for extended reading, are great in full sunlight, and have battery life measured in weeks or months. Really, tablets are a long way from competing with that.

The Atom one sounds interesting, but the second one sounds like a complete piece of crap. Like wellsoul2 said, cheap chinese tablets like the Ainol Novo7 line have much better specs and a much lower price.

Also:

Quote:

Asus’ other rumored tablet, referred to as the ME172V, will be fueled by a 1GHz WM8950 SoC with Mali-400 graphics. The chip features the same Cortex A9 ARM architecture as the Nexus 7’s Tegra 3 SoC, though the WM8950 only has a single CPU core instead of four and clocks in at 800MHz.

On the provided link, the SoC is stated as running at 1Ghz, that second figure should be changed. In any case, if the ME172V is really priced at $226, they are freaking nuts.

Florence Ion / Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.